Articles written by Jaron Schneider

Fstoppers has partnered with the awesome folks at ViewBug to bring you sweet, sweet contests weekly! We're starting things off with a bang by giving away your choice of a Canon 5K Mark III or a Nikon D800, arguably two of the best DSLRs on the market. The theme of the contest is "Creative Compositions." The contest will be judged by Dan Carr, a senior photographer for the Canadian ski magazine Skier.

Videos like this help bring awareness of disaster situations which in turn brings aid and funding for recovery efforts. It can be argued that videos like this are pivotally important in the modern age for any area of the United States to get the help they need. But the FAA, still miffed about drones in general, is considering fining the videographer $10,000 for taking the footage.

Sony has announced the successor to the α77 in the α77II. The camera, according to Sony, is designed for "advanced amateurs" and has enhanced features like "the world's highest number of AF points in a new phase detect autofocus system with 79 focal points" and can "shoot at up to 12 fps for 60 total frames with continuous AF." Sony has also purportedly increased the sensor sensitivity by 20%, which means better low-light performance.

Quick note about a deal that is really had to pass up. The Sony 16GB SDHC Class 10 UHS-1 Memory Card is on sale for a very low $12.50 right now. I personally use a few of the 64 GB cards of the same class for all my video work and have found them to be very reliable. If you need a backup card or just want to pick up some cheap memory, now is your chance. ...

Tamron's VC technology can't be beat: it's simply the best option out there for any type of optical stabilization. I can't live without it when it comes to video, and it's so good it often makes using a steady cam unnecessary. Common complaints with Tamron is often the build quality and sharpness, so let's see how their latest super zoom, the 150-600 f/5-6.3 handled a wildlife shoot.

For those who dabble in video but come from a photo background, you might not know the difference between a still lens and a video lens. If you do, you might not know why those differences exist. DSLR Video Shooter has this really informative video that breaks down the differences and shows you how to convert your still lenses into cinema glass.

The Lytro field camera was cute, but completely impractical for anyone who really wanted to take professional imagery. It was a weird rectangle that just never felt like anything more than a toy. Today Lytro intends to change that with the release of their professionally-focused Light Field Camera Illum. It comes with a 30mm-250mm lens equivalent with a constant f/2.0 aperture and will ship starting July 2014 for $1,599.

It's pretty easy to get caught up in the MoVI hype- it's an outstanding achievement in camera stabilization technology. Magnanimous Media, a large video rental house in Chicago, took some time to explain what the MoVI is really good at, while also tempering expectations on what it can do and what a traditional steady cam would better for.

Fstoppers contributor, Retouching Academy founder and good friend of mine Julia Kuzmenko receives a lot of random messages to her Facebook. Most of them are along the lines of "I love your work," but sometimes they are more direct than that. Recently she was sent a request for a retouch of a photo from someone she didn't know, and she let loose the Retouching Academy for a fun session of Photoshop Fail.

Though no one at Sigma has ever told me they were gunning to best the Zeiss 55mm f/1.4 Otus when they released the 50mm f/1.4 Art, it's been pretty widely accepted that was their goal (since crushing Nikon and Canon glass doesn't seem to be a challenge lately). But recent DxO tests show Sigma fell short of this. But it's pretty easy to see it's still the best 50mm on the market.

WD, of the Western Digital Company, released what I thought to be an outstanding addition to their line: a thunderbolt-powered dual hard drive that promised speeds of up to 233 MB/s. No additional cables, small, user-selectable RAID and fast? The My Passport Pro looked like it could easily be the road-version of my Lacie d2. But it's more than that. It replaced my Lacie.

We saw specs for the Pentax 645Zleaked a couple days ago, but now we can compare them to the official announcement made by Pentax. The 645Z is a medium format monster of a camera featuring a 51.4 megapixel sensor, 3 frames per second shooting, full HD video at 60i/30P frame rate and internal 4K resolution recording (3840 x 2160 pixels; in Motion JPEG or AVI video format).

If you had to guess, you probably would have guessed $1200 for the upcoming and highly anticipated Sigma 50mm f/1.4. It's the most common guess I've heard. It's a good guess, and one that takes into consideration the quality that Sigma has been putting out recently and the pricing of competitors. But it would be a wrong guess. That's right, Sigma has decided to keep the lens in the sub-$1000 price range atonly $949.

Apparently Blackmagic has been busy this past year, as not only have we seen the URSA at NAB, but also they just announced the Studio Camera. Inside its magnesium alloy body you get a massive 10” viewfinder, 4 hour battery, talkback, tally indicators, phantom powered microphone connections and built in optical fiber and SDI connections that let you connect to your switcher with a single cable.

Blackmagic has announced a new camera, the URSA. It has multiple accessories built in, including a massive 10 inch fold out on set monitor, large user upgradable Super 35 global shutter 4K image sensor and internal dual RAW and Apple ProRes recorders. It also has a swappable sensor, so you can choose EF or PL lens mounts, or even a broadcast video sensor with B4 mount, or even upgrade the camera in the future.

Sony's newly announced a7S is shaping up to be a video behemoth. Yes, this video really impressed me. With its light weight and quality sensor, if they hit the right price point Sony could have the camera I would be tempted to leave Canon for. "Features newly developed, wide dynamic range sensor with awe-inspiring sensitivity.

For quite some time now Samsung has seemed content to sell their SD card tech unbranded and basically unknown to the public. You might be unaware you're using a Samsung SD or Micro SD right now, either locked away in your phone or branded under a different name. But starting today, Samsung has decided to change that, offering three new levels from consumer to pro, with the pro 64 GB card showing impressive specs for a first-time seller.